The analysis—by Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro, both professors in the graduate school of business at the University of Chicago—draws on the late James S. Coleman’s study of the test scores of more than 300,000 students who were ages 11, 14, and 17 in 1965. The authors found that an additional year of exposure to television viewing before preschool positively affected children’s reading and general-knowledge scores. The benefit was especially seen for children from households where English was not the primary language, for nonwhite children, and for those whose mothers had not graduated from high school.

Early-childhood exposure to TV did not negatively affect high school graduation rates.